Renounce

I’ll let you in
on a secret.
You put me
through some hard times.
I shed more tears over you
than you’ll ever know
and deserve,
and lost countless hours
of sleep
racking my mind
on where we went wrong
and how I could fix us.
For every time I mustered
the courage to talk to you,
there were a million more
where I did not.
I put you ahead
of everything I ever held sacred
in some pitiful attempt
to show you
just how much you mattered
to me.
It was all
for nothing.
But,
you know,
if I somehow knew
through some gift
of farsight
that we would end up
together,
I would live
through all of that pain
again
and again
and again.
The shame,
the loneliness,
the isolation,
the scars you
knowingly inflicted;
it would all
have been worth it
were I certain
to have you
in the end.

~LT